Deeper Shade Of Seoul

FAN DEATH

This is totally serious...I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. So many of my kids and even some of my older Korean friends totally buy into this. Maybe I'm spoiled by AC, but all my fan does is blow hot air onto me. I don't know what kind of fans the Koreans are using that might cause hypofuckingthermia!! I think it's hysterical, but I'm way too lazy to do all the research so I waited for Brendan to do it and then stole it from his site. Thanks buddy!!

FAN DEATH

Fan death is an urban legend that was originally primarily confined to South Korea but has spread to other countries in the Far East. The legend states that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room, can result in the death (by suffocation, poisoning, or hypothermia) of those inside. This belief also extends to air conditioners and the fans in cars. When the air conditioner or fan is on in a car, some people are apt to leave their car windows open a crack to avoid "fan death". Fans manufactured and sold in Korea are equipped with a timer switch that turns them off after a set number of minutes, which users are frequently urged to set when going to sleep with a fan on.

Beliefs
There are several reasons given as to how a fan can kill: It is believed that an electric fan creates a vortex, which sucks the oxygen from the enclosed and sealed room and creates a partial vacuum inside. In reality, the air pressure at any point in the room varies less than it does during a storm.

It is believed that the fan uses up the oxygen in the room and creates fatal levels of carbon dioxide. Of course, there is no actual conversion of oxygen to carbon dioxide happening; fans do not alter the composition of the air.

It is believed that if the fan is put directly in front of the face of the sleeping person, it will suck all the air away, preventing one from breathing. However, as can be easily verified, it is perfectly possible to breath with one's face in front of a running fan.

Fans are alleged to cause hypothermia. As the metabolism slows down at night, one becomes more sensitive to temperature, and thus supposedly more prone to hypothermia. If the fan is left on all night in a sealed and enclosed room, it will lower the temperature of the room to the point that it can cause hypothermia. Empirical measurements will show, however, that the temperature in the room does not fall, at least not due to the fan; if at all, it should rise slightly because of friction, but even this is generally not significant.

Often, it is claimed that a combination of these factors is responsible. For example, it might be explained that the fan lowers the oxygen level in the room while raising carbon dioxide levels, which could prove fatal to a sleeping person already weakened by hypothermia.

Media coverage
The explanation of fan death is accepted by many Korean medical professionals. In summer, mainstream Korean news sources regularly report on cases of fan death, even if more likely causes (e.g. heart attack, gunshot, alcohol poisoning) are evident.

A typical example is this excerpt from the July 28, 1997, edition of the Korea Herald, an English-language newspaper: The heat wave which has encompassed Korea for about a week, has generated various heat-related accidents and deaths. At least 10 people died from the effects of electric fans which can remove oxygen from the air and lower body temperatures.... On Friday in eastern Seoul, a 16-year-old girl died from suffocation after she fell asleep in her room with an electric fan in motion. The death toll from fan-related incidents reached 10 during the past week.

Medical experts say that this type of death occurs when one is exposed to electric fan breezes for long hours in a sealed area. "Excessive exposure to such a condition lowers one's temperature and hampers blood circulation. And it eventually leads to the paralysis of heart and lungs," says a medical expert. "To prevent such an accident, one should keep the windows open and not expose oneself directly to fan air," he advised.

When informed that the phenomenon is virtually unheard of outside of their country, some Koreans have suggested that their unique physiology renders them susceptible to fan death.

posted by Jes @ 23:18